o me."

It was nearly one o'clock when he appeared at Nellie's apartment.
Rachel admitted him. He hung his hat and coat on the rack, deposited
his cane in the corner, and sauntered coolly into the little
sitting-room, the maid looking on in no little wonder and uneasiness.

"Where's my wife?" he asked, taking up the morning paper from the
centre table and preparing to make himself at home in the big
armchair.

"She's out to lunch, sir."

He laid the paper down.

"Where?"

Rachel mentioned a prominent downtown cafe affected by the
profession.

"Will you have lunch here, sir?" she inquired.

"No," said he, determinedly. "Thank you just the same. I'm lunching
downtown. I--I thought perhaps she'd like to join me."

Rachel rang for the elevator and he departed, amiably doffing his hat
to her as he dropped to the floor below.

At one of the popular corner tables in the big cafe a party of men and
women were seated, seven or eight in all. Nellie Duluth had her back
toward the other tables in the room. It was a bit of modesty that she
always affected. She did not like being stared at. Besides, she could
hold her audience to the very end, so to speak, for all in the place
knew she was there and were willing to wait until she condescended to
face them in the process of departure.

It was a very gay party, comprising a grand-opera soprano and a tenor
of world-wide reputation, as well as three or four very well-known New
Yorkers. Manifestly, it was Fairfax's luncheon. The crowd at this
table was observed by all the neck-craners in the place. Every one was
telling every one else what every one knew:--"That's Nellie Duluth
over there."

As the place began to clear out and tables were being abandoned here
and there, a small man in a checked suit appeared in the doorway. An
attendant took his hat and coat away from him while he was gazing with
kaleidoscopic instability of vision upon the gay scene before him. He
had left his walking-stick in a street car, a circumstance which
delayed him a long time, for, on missing it, he waited at a corner in
the hope of recognising the motorman on his return trip up Madison
Avenue.

The head-waiter was bowing before him and murmuring, "How many, sir?"

"How many what?" mumbled Harvey, with a start.

"In your party?" asked the man, not half so politely and with a degree
of distance in his attitude. It did not look profitable.

"Oh! Only one, sir. Just a sandwich and a cup of cof